Work Truck Magazine, December 2017

DECEMBER 2017 WORK TRUCK 25 and driver alerts can help immediately remedy an issue Today managers can get real time alerts for broken thresholds to address with drivers immediately said Emily Candib assistant director product management for Merchants Fleet Management Overall crash avoidance technology is helping to reduce accidents Accident avoidance equipment installed in medium duty vehicles help to lessen accidents Advanced driver aids are helping mitigate inattentive or distracted drivers As we see more of these technologies become commonplace fleets will continue to benefit from reduced accidents Denmyer said While a slight decrease in accidents is something to be proud of the ultimate goal is to completely eliminate accidents and to do so we need dramatic decreases I do believe that crash avoidance systems on vehicles today are making a difference However with too many older vehicles poorly trained drivers and too much pressure to make appointments combined with road rage mean it will take a lot more time to truly see a dramatic decrease in accidents said Bob Martines CEO of CCM But the discussion of more technology in a vehicle brings driver training back to the conversation The crash avoidance systems have helped avoid some accidents but the missing element is the initial training needed for new drivers For instance if the new drivers backup sensor is warning them about the fixed object e g mailbox but what if the driver could have proactively positioned their vehicle to avoid backing up Companies need to put more time and money into changing their drivers mindset and developing professional driving and parking habits Veres said Biggest Impact on Accident Management Costs When an accident does occur there is more to the cost than just the vehicle repair Added technology on vehicles is increasing repair costs Downtime is also a big concern in medium duty fleets Vehicle downtime for totaled or lengthy repairs including the cost of the claim repairs potential product and driver downtime can be quite an expense for fleets that do not have inventory to pull from in the medium duty sector said Candib of Merchants The repair shop itself is also a part of the accident cost equation Being that there are fewer shops that can repair medium duty trucks its becoming increasingly common for repair delays to add to the cost of replacement vehicles Additionally with fewer truck body shops the lack of competition does impact the willingness of shops to be more competitive with repair prices said Lewis of EMKAY The expense of replacing the more expensive technology on todays vehicle is also adding to repair costs Regarding repair costs the more technology we install in vehicles the more costly the repairs Mechanical and electronic components are going to fail at some point just from usage If a 1000 air bag system fails or a 3000 wiring harness is compromised from an accident that cost just half of that a few years ago what is a company to do They bite the bullet and pay for the additional costs said Martines of CCM And you cant ignore the court related costs especially if there is an at fault accident and a lawsuit is involved One of the larger impacts is the liability cost for at fault accidents said Denmyer of Element And there are costs that are not related directly to the incident itself The biggest factor in accident management costs for medium duty truck fleets tends to be the cost that fleets arent factoring into their accident management costs injuries in accidents noted Luann Dunkerley Northeast region manager for The CEI Group When an employee is injured in an accident the fleet incurs losses from workmans compensation claims loss of productivity and medical bills which can easily dwarf the costs of the physical damage In fact NETS estimates that the true cost of an accident is more than 24000 per accident If a third party is injured the costs begin to climb even higher when the fleet is found liable Liability exposure has been a big talking point in the fleet world in recent years with huge losses for large corporations in punitive damage awards Dunkerley added additional places to find savings include using LKQ parts when available saving time through more efficient communications and approval processes avoiding purely cosmetic repairs and taking the time to find hidden damage before putting vehicles back on the road But the biggest impact on accident management costs are the number of accidents a fleet must deal with and lowering the accident rate should be the primary goal she said Trends Best Practices To help reduce accident incidents in a medium duty truck fleet the overwhelming top best practice is a focus on driver training Safety training tends to be on the forefront of best practices for medium and heavy duty fleets leading with event based training and refresher ILLUSTRATION GETTY IMAGES CANDIB Merchants Fleet Management MARTINES CCM LEWIS EMKAY

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